[*     JUL  29  190' 

THE  CALL^^„^-*^ 

OF  THE  ^^mj^' 

COUNTRY  CHURCH 


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HOYT 


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^^  i\\t  W^^ogimi  ^ 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


\ 


BV   638    .H69    1909 

Hoyt,  Arthur  Stephen,  1851- 

1924. 
The  call  of  the  country 

nhnmh 


c. 


[*    :JUL^9  1909      *] 


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THE   CALL   OF 
THE   COUNTRY   CHURCH 


£fi/CAL  StlA' 


.^vt 


BY 
ARTHUR    STEPHEN    HOYT 

PROFESSOR   IN    THE    THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY 
AT  AUBURN 


NEW   YORK 

Student  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 

124  East  Twenty-eighth  Street 

1909 


Copyright,  igog,  by 

The  International  Committee  of  Young  Men's 

Christian  Associations 


The  Claims  and  Opportunities 
of  the   Christian  Ministry 

A    SERIES    OF    PAMPHLETS 
EDITED  BY  JOHN  R.  MOTT 


THE   CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH 

By  ARTHUR   STEPHEN   HOYT 


series  of  pamphlets  on  the 

Claims  and  Opportunities  of  the 
Christian  Ministry 


The    Claims    of    the    Ministry   on    Strong 
Men 
By  George  Angier  Gordon 

The  Right  Sort  of  Men  for  the  Ministry 
By  William  Eraser  McDowell 

The   Modern   Interpretation   of   the  Call 
to  the  Ministry 
By  Edward  Increase  Bosworth 

The  Preparation  of  the  Modern  Minister 
By  Walter  William  Moore 

The  Minister  and  His  People 
By  Phillips  Brooks 

The  Minister  and  the  Community 
By  WooDROW  Wilson 

The  Call  of  the  Country  Church 
By  Arthur  Stephen  Hoyt 

The  Weak  Church  and  the  Strong  Man 
By  Edward  Increase  Bosworth 

The  Minister  as  Preacher 

By  Charles  Edward  Jefferson 


Letter  from  President  Roosevelt 

On  the  Call  of  the  Nation  for  Able  Men  to 

Lead  the  Forces  of  Christianity 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  COUNTRY 
CHURCH 

The  country  church  offers  a  field  of  special  impor- 
tance. In  the  country  the  family,  the  very  unit  of 
society,  is  felt  to  be  more  sacred,  the  ties  are  stronger, 
and  there  is  chance  for  more  distinct  and  consistent 
training.  Life  lies  open  to  the  sun  and  to  the  eyes 
of  men,  and  the  very  forces  of  nature  teach  the  de- 
mocracy of  honest  toil.  Custom  and  public  opinion 
are  not  so  sharp  and  arbitrary  and  men  grow  inde- 
pendent in  judgment  and  action.  They  are  thrown 
upon  their  own  resources  and  they  have  the  flavor 
of  individuality.  Men  know  each  other  and  have 
kindly  interest  in  each  other  and  the  expression  of 
sympathy  is  natural  and  spontaneous.  And  these 
qualities  of  individual  worth  and  social  stability 
have  been  largely  trained  by  the  influences  of  the 
country  church.  Religion  has  quickened  and  sanc- 
tified these  natural  forces  of  country  life. 

The  church,  from  the  beginning,  has  been  pecu- 

5 


liarly  the  centre  of  the  community.  The  minister 
has  been  able  to  know  men  individually,  to  be  a 
friend  to  each  person  in  his  parish,  to  touch  them  the 
most  vitally,  actually  to  have  the  moulding  of  char- 
acter, without  the  manifold  distractions  and  opposing 
forces  of  the  city.  And  from  country  churches  have 
gone  forth  the  leading  men  and  women  of  the  nation. 
A  single  country  church  of  Central  New  York  in  a 
single  generation  sent  seven  of  its  sons  into  the  min- 
istry, and  a  score  of  capable  and  energetic  laymen 
to  strengthen  the  life  of  as  many  city  churches. 

The  country  church  offers  a  field  of  special  need. 
Country  life  has  changed  greatly  in  the  memory  of 
living  men,  in  all  the  older  states,  and  the  same 
forces  are  now  working  in  the  Middle  West.  There 
has  been  an  unmistakable  loss  of  unity,  both  social 
and  religious.  Invention  applied  to  agriculture  has 
released  three  men  out  of  four  on  the  farm,  and  they 
have  followed  the  gravitation  to  the  city  or  to  newer 
lands.  The  young,  the  ambitious  have  often  gone, 
leaving  the  aged,  the  less  progressive,  and  the  ne'er- 
do-wells.  With  the  loss  of  population  have  been  the 
depreciation  of  farm  values  and  the  increase  of  ten- 
ant farms  and  large  farms.  Foreigners  have  partly 
6 


taken  the  place  of  the  native  stock.  There  has  been 
a  loss  of  social  power  in  these  rapid  changes  of  coun- 
try life. 

These  changes  have  afifected  the  country  church. 
The  average  rural  congregation  is  smaller  than  a 
generation  ago.  Through  the  loss  of  old  families, 
the  church  is  left  with  crippled  means  and  finds  a 
growing  difficulty  in  settling  a  well-trained  man. 
So  a  stable  ministry,  with  its  pervasive  and  unifying 
influence,  has  often  yielded  to  a  transient  or  at  most 
a  yearly  supply,  of  necessity,  brief  and  superficial  in 
effect.  Sectarian  rivalries  add  to  the  difficulty  of 
the  country  problem.  Churches  that  once  had  a 
fair  field  now  struggle  for  life  and  they  are  tempted 
to  think  of  their  own  life  more  than  their  ministry  to 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  And  many  communities  are 
suffering  a  spiritual  lapse  because  three  or  four  feeble 
churches  are  competitors  in  the  same  field  in  the 
place  of  a  single,  comprehensive  church,  its  members 
self-reverencing  and  reverencing  each. 

And  then  the  country  church  faces  the  fact  of  the 
unchurched  masses,  the  foreigners  who  have  taken 
possession  of  the  old  farms,  and  the  lapsed  Ameri- 
cans of  Christian  ancestry.     The  frontiers  are  every- 

7 


where,  not  alone  in  new  states,  but  close  about  many 
old  centres.  A  newly  installed  country  pastor  of 
Central  New  York  recently  found  forty-seven  fam- 
ilies, chiefly  American,  within  three  miles  of  his  church, 
without  religious  convictions  or  habits.  The  case  of 
Middleboro,  Massachusetts,  is  not  unlike  that  of 
many  other  townships,  fifteen  churches  representing 
eight  denominations,  and  two  thirds  of  the  popula- 
tion without  aflfiliation  with  any  of  the  churches. 
It  is  a  moderate  estimate  to  say  that  one  fourth  of 
our  country  population  is  today  beyond  the  direct 
influence  of  the  Church,  a  greater  aggregate  than 
the  pagans  of  our  cities. 

The  country  church  has  been  extremely  conserva- 
tive both  in  teachings  and  methods.  It  has  not 
adapted  itself  to  the  changed  social  needs,  and  has 
suffered  other  agencies,  as  the  grange  and  the  lodge, 
to  usurp  its  place  of  leadership.  As  means  of  in- 
struction have  increased,  the  pulpit  has  not  kept  its 
intellectual  position.  Its  teachings  have  not  frankly 
met  the  new  light  on  the  problems  of  nature  and  life. 
The  church  has  depended  too  much  upon  spasmodic 
revivals  and  not  on  daily  ministrations;  it  has  drawn 
false  distinctions  in  life  by  hard  and  fast  rules,  and 


not  dwelt  upon  the  great  principles  of  the  Gospel. 
These  tendencies  have  acted  with  the  natural  eco- 
nomic and  social  changes  for  a  partial  decline  of  the 
country  church. 

The  problem  of  rural  life  must  be  of  serious  im- 
port to  all  Christian  patriots.  Religion  is  the  co- 
hesive force  of  society.  The  frontiers  of  any  country 
are  its  weakest  places  morally,  and  its  most  danger- 
ous characters  are  there.  The  isolation  of  the  coun- 
try tends  to  develop  forceful  characters  for  good  or 
ill.  ''Isolation,"  said  Burke,  "is  the  mother  of  bar- 
barism." The  recovery  and  development  of  coun- 
try life  is  the  problem.  American  Christianity  may 
have  its  hardest  task  in  imparting  recuperative  force 
to  its  partially  spent  communities. 

What  sort  of  a  man  should  answer  the  call  of  the 
country  church?  He  should  be  a  man  who  loves  the 
out-door  world,  who  loves  its  freedom  and  beauty  and 
growth.  If  he  finds  recreation  with  rod  or  gun  all 
the  better;  anything  that  takes  him  far  afield  will  give 
him  the  sense  of  kinship  with  nature.  It  will  keep 
his  body  strong  and  his  mind  sane,  and  he  will  find 
some  of  his  best  sermons  in  the  fields,  for  he  will 
hear  the  Master  speak  as  He  did  in  the  cornfields. 
9 


He  should  be  a  man  who  has  deep  human  interest, 
who  can  see  true  human  worth  behind  rough  faces 
and  hard  conditions.  He  must  be  one  who  tries  to 
make  friends,  who  knows  each  member  of  his  par- 
ish, who  concerns  himself  with  all  that  touches  their 
life.  He  should  know  the  work  of  the  country  and 
not  be  afraid  to  take  a  hand;  a  distant,  clerical  garbed, 
kid-gloved  ministry  is  peculiarly  a  misfit  in  the  sim- 
plicity and  freedom  of  country  life. 

As  a  preacher,  he  should  have  the  teacher's  gift 
and  make  the  most  of  the  teaching  ministry.  Coun- 
try people  can  appreciate  good  preaching  and  in  the 
past  have  had  their  share  of  it.  But  the  preacher  is 
the  teacher  far  more  than  the  orator.  And  the 
pastor  in  the  country  where  there  are  fewer  agencies 
of  education  than  in  the  city,  owes  it  to  his  people 
to  make  his  pulpit  instructive  and  to  make  the  life  of 
the  church,  not  only  a  religious  force,  but  a  means 
of  intellectual  and  social  culture. 

He  should  be  a  man  who  has  the  missionary  spirit, 
who  shall  make  his  little  church  feel  itself  a  vital 
part  of  the  Kingdom,  who  shall  help  to  the  largeness 
of  mind  and  life  that  comes  from  the  sense  of  con- 
tact with  the  world.     And  like  the  true  shepherd,  he 

lO 


should  seek  the  wandering  and  scattered  sheep,  and 
carry  the  word  to  every  person  of  the  community. 

And  finally  he  should  be  a  man  with  the  social  con- 
sciousness. It  is  significant  that  a  country  church 
of  Iowa  recently  asked  for  a  man  who  had  the  train- 
ing of  a  social  settlement.  Dr.  W.  H.  Jordan,  di- 
rector of  the  New  York  Agricultural  Experiment 
Station  at  Geneva,  says  that  he  would  have  every 
country  pastor  take  at  least  one  year  in  an  agricul- 
tural college.  Both  are  significant  of  the  fact  that 
life  is  organic  and  that  the  whole  life  is  to  be  under- 
stood and  helped.  Social  methods  are  just  as  nec- 
essary and  helpful  to  the  country  church  as  to  the 
one  in  the  city.  The  man  with  a  sense  of  pure 
neighborliness,  patience  to  understand  conditions, 
love  that  will  serve  all  the  sides  of  human  life  and 
will  make  the  Gospel  touch  every  side  and  province 
of  man's  nature,  will  find  the  country  church  a  field 
of  never-ending  interest,  and  one  that  demands  and 
repays  the  very  best  that  he  can  give. 


II 


v'-s 


